UK retailer Phones4U has placed the newly-announced Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini up for pre-order on its site, along with the first details of on-contract pricing. The phone, which will come in white and blue, will be sold on by P4U on Vodafone, Orange and O2, and will be available for free on contracts starting at £25 per month. That'll get you a 24-month contract on Vodafone, with 300 minutes, unlimited texts and 250MB. If you're after a little more data, O2 offers 500MB for £27 per month. Cheaper deals are available, but you'll pay an up-front fee for the phone.

SIM-free prices were revealed yesterday -- in the UK, the Galaxy S3 Mini will set you back just short of £300 if purchased by itself.

The Galaxy S3 Mini shares its design with its big brother, but the internal components have been downgraded to fit with the phone's smaller form factor and lower price tag. It's powered by a 1GHz dual-core CPU, and packs 8 or 16GB of storage, expandable via microSD card. Around the back, there's a 5MP autofocus camera. It does at least come with the latest version of Android -- 4.1 Jelly Bean -- along with Samsung's latest TouchWiz Nature UX.

Anyone tempted by the S3 Mini given what we now know about pricing? Shout out in the comments.

I rather just get a Galaxy Blaze that has a 1.5ghz dual core but with ICS only (witch i don't mind being without 4.1). Very casual looking and same screen. Kinda weird they take a step back to call it something with a nomenclature of something that is supposed to be overall better.

It's almost the same physical size as the Razr M/i, costs the same, and is inferior on every spec, often in a big way. The One S is also the same price and far superior, but in a slightly bigger package. Those two phones are way ahead of the Mini in this price bracket. The only advantage of the Mini is getting Jelly Bean now but both of the other phones are confirmed to get JB soon too.

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